


Like Spring Nights

by almost_teacup



Series: Life and Times of Brielle Josefina [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: "why did i write this" is a tag, Brendol is mean, Brendol is terrible, Brielle gets attacked by Snoke, Cinnamon Roll, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Dancing, Evil Snoke, F/F, First of many, I literally cannot, M/M, Millicent the cat - Freeform, Singing, Snoke - Freeform, Snoke attack, Starkiller hinted at in final chapter, Waltzing, Why Did I Write This?, drunk people, everyone's a cinnamon roll, except hux he'll probably kill you, i'm not even trying to rein in my weirdness rn, mitaka is a cinnamon roll who likes to pregame, way pre-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-12-27 08:53:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almost_teacup/pseuds/almost_teacup
Summary: Hux is stalking toward his new lieutenant like she’s about to be his next kill, and all she can think is--"the arms go in the sleeves, General. Do you know how coats work?"Or, how Captain Phasma falls in love, and who she falls in love with.





	1. Chapter 1

The girl sings.

At first Liliana thinks she’s gone insane, she’s hearing things, or else that someone’s hijacked her helmet and started playing a single melody, something quiet and hopeful, under-breath and almost like a secret. This last option would be unusual, but is not something she’d put past Ren. Except Ren would play something he knew she’d hate. And this is oddly calming. 

It must be, for it’s only when she’s at peace, at the very center of a self she’s trying to forget, that she doesn’t think of herself as _Phasma_ or as _Captain_ but as _Lili,_ a first name no one uses, a name most don’t even know, which has somehow stayed with her through reconditioning after reconditioning. It will not leave her. After all else is wiped away, still _Lili_ remains, and still in certain times of weakness it is how she thinks of herself. 

All this makes her assume something is interfering with her thoughts. 

The alternative—that someone aboard the _Finalizer,_ and moreover someone working on the bridge, is singing—is too bizarre to contemplate. In a world that is all glimmering gray and darkness punctuated by starlight, governed by generals and admirals and strict schedules and stricter dress codes, no one sings. If anyone does, she hasn’t met them. 

But someone is. 

Lili turns briefly and sees her, mouth moving faintly along with the music she hears. The girl is typing, shuffling files, drinking coffee out of a mug the size of a bowl, and all the while pouring out her longings and joys right into the open air. No one has reprimanded her yet. Lili thinks it is a blessing, or perhaps it’s simpler than a blessing: it’s just disbelief. No one has the presence of mind to acknowledge that this girl is doing something frankly surreal. 

Her melodies change slightly at times, the lyrics run from subject to subject, but there is a steady stream of something constant there, a sort of melancholy peace and planet-side moonlight, and one gold thread of hope which almost runs unnoticed through the fabric of her song. 

(Lili wonders if she herself ever had such a gift, if that was ever something she’d been blessed with, and decides against it. It hurts to think of things that came before her first reconditioning. Usually, she just doesn’t try. Because the voice that says _of course you had it, everyone has it_ leads her along a line that would be impossible to follow. That’s a line of rebellion.)

For now, she’s content to stand at the great window overlooking the star destroyer and listen to the girl, who she cannot see anymore, who she does not want to see anymore, does not want to recognize as her singer. _Her singer._ How quickly she attaches herself to the girl. 

Just as quickly, she must detach.

She doesn’t want to watch the girl fade. Everyone fades here. It happened to her, and she has seen it happen to everyone else. 

She knows she’s intimidating, standing there in full armor, pensive, like she’s there to frighten her company, but she isn’t. She’s just listening to this moment of grace, this moment that comes before someone breaks the girl, because someone _will_ break her, because someone breaks all of them. 

People who come to the Order like spring nights get broken, snapped fast and easy without a thought. Their souls miss summer and autumn, they run straight to winter. This is the way of things. Captain Liliana Phasma knows it. She is often the cause. 

But the voice is like water, and she is so terribly thirsty. She can’t leave yet, and she tells herself she’s content to look at the stars and listen to the voice, when she longs to stop the girl for a moment, to ask her name, to ask her to continue, to ask her _why_. None of that will take place, but at the very least, Lili’s troops can manage another few minutes without her.

She’s taken from her thoughts when General Hux strides past with his nose tilted slightly into the air, and looks down at those below him, and says to someone, “Lieutenant Green.”

“Yes?”

The voice is gentle, inquisitive. It’s like the girl forgot that this is a military operation, and opted for a tone better suited to a coffee-shop in the middle of nowhere than a star destroyer. 

“Sir.”

“Yes, sir.” 

Now she remembers. 

“Your hair is not regulation. Frankly it is abominable. I will not mention that you are singing, for I can only assume on that front, you are under some sort of Force manipulation.”

“I’m confused, sir.”

“Well then how may I enlighten you, Lieutenant Green?” The sarcasm and bite in his tone is evident, and Lili wants to defend the girl. She wants to defend that voice. _Irrational,_ she says to herself. She brushes it all aside, and doesn’t move from her place at the window.

“About the hair, I’m doing what you said. I’m letting it grow—”

“And you are now too dishevelled to be fit for work.”

“And about the song, I am sorry, I only—”

“You only nothing. You are upsetting the workings of the whole bridge. I dislike belligerence, Green.”

“I meant none.”

“ _You meant what, then?_ ”

“That to grow my hair takes time, and that singing passes days rather better than silence. Sir. General.” 

She tries not to flinch when she sees how much he looks like his father after she says that. Like he’s going to either implode or kill someone. She should have learned to acquiesce, not to try to reason with these people, but she can’t seem to help herself. Everyone said that they took her too old when they recruited — _recruited,_ more like stole her, from her older brothers by the side of the lake with the fields and the blue house — and they must have done, for she cannot mimic and certainly cannot believe the blind obedience that some have around here. 

But when they took her, she was heralded as very intelligent in books, and lacking in common sense as anyone could be. She can’t help it, she doesn’t know how. It isn’t a flattering picture, and she still doesn’t like it, and she still can’t change it. And somehow it ended her up on the _Finalizer,_ goddess and stars only knew how. She had always thought she would be kept away from such people as General Hux, instead of being assigned to work under the likes of him, and not for her own safety but for his sanity. Such people aren’t often fond of her. 

Of course, it was his father who hated her most. 

She doesn’t like to think about how much his father hated her. 

“You are troublesome and defiant. I’m choosing to overlook your ruckus, and you may not be so lucky—”

“She’s young,” says an overly-tall and oddly silver trooper, cutting into the conversation. Brielle thinks she has seen her, thinks she looks very like the famed Captain Phasma, but she cannot be. She’s heard stories, that Phasma is ruthless, that she’s heartless, that she’s certainly too high up in the ranks and probably too cruel to look down at this blustering ginger and basically say, _don’t hurt the girl._ Even if she’s saying _she doesn’t matter_ in the same breath, she’s asking for protection. 

And despite this Brielle is a little offended. Surely she can take care of herself?

“I know you worry about every detail, but really. Why someone so small? One officer growing her hair and singing won’t take down our ship.” 

“It’s insubordinate!”

The armored woman makes a sound rather like laughter. At least Brielle thinks it is laughter. It’s hard to tell under the helmet. 

“ _What_ is funny?”

“Just let it go,” she says. 

“Why?”

“You have better things to do.”

“Do you dare try to command me?”

“You and Ren and I are equal, so I can’t. It’s advice, let it go. Anyway,” she scoffs, as best as one can under a helmet like that. “You’ll get rattled and explode or something, and I’d rather not be the one cleaning that up.”

They aren’t talking about her or to her anymore, and so Brielle turns back to the set of data she was working on before they arrived. 

“Wait, Lieutenant.”

“Yes?”

“I—never mind, I can manage it myself.” Lili isn’t sure what she’d have said, doesn’t think there’s anything she could have said.

She didn’t want to look at her before, but now she can’t stop. The girl— _Brielle—_ is small, made smaller by the fact that there’s no river of arrogance in here eyes, as there is in most officers’, and by the untamed, frankly ridiculous shock of dark hair that just barely frames her face. 

She looks at Lili for a second with a benevolently perplexed smile, and then nods, and then goes back again to her work. It’s enough. Lili only wanted to reassure herself that the girl was real. 

 

*******

 

Brielle reassures herself that people are real, too, sometimes, but she does so by touching them. She tries to avoid it when the people she works with are concerned. She usually succeeds. She would, if she were not armored and too far up, probably try to at least brush hands with this woman, to ensure that she's solid, and whisper her thanks so no one else could overhear. Because this woman does not seem real, not at all, not considering the other people Brielle comes across around here, not considering the way they seem troubled by her, the way they seem to hate her. 

 

She touches people to make sure she doesn't need to run from them, too. To gauge their expressions, to make sure she is safe near them. 

People change too quickly in her experience, go from kind to cold to murderous, make protectiveness into possessiveness, rage at her before she can get a word in or argue for herself. She can bear such things, but they don’t always feel real. And somehow that—the fact that she’s not sure what’s coming, that no one gives any warning around here—turns into strange gestures, touching people, singing, that sort of thing. Little pockets of space that keep her grounded. 

She needs to stay grounded.

 

********

 

Hux walks back to his apartment when his shift ends, and finds Kylo Ren sitting on his kitchen counter, drinking coffee straight out of the pot. Such things are typical, but at the moment it annoys him. 

He does not say anything yet, but he picks up Millie when she walks over to him, and squints at her. The majestic orange puffball squints back. 

“Do you know what’s wrong with Phasma?”

“No, I thought she was fine.”

“I was talking to Millie.”

“You’re talking to a cat when there’s another person here?”

“Yes.”

“You’re talking to a cat who can’t even speak when there’s a person here who can read minds?”

“Yes.”

“I see how it is.”

He continues drinking the coffee. 

“You know if you asked I’d tell you what she’s thinking.”

“If you go running through her head, she’ll murder you.”

“I could take her. Anyway, it’s like she’s talking to me. I’ve been hearing it all day, no effort needed.”

“Well?”

“You didn’t ask.”

He hates Kylo. He really hates him. Of course if he was anywhere else Hux would wish him here, sitting on the kitchen counter, drinking right out of the coffee pot, and being an idiot—the one person he can tolerate belligerence, truly, can tolerate just about anything from—but he’s still rather infuriating. 

“Well, what’s she thinking?”

“I can’t tell.”

“ _You can’t—”_

Ren laughs. Loudly. Smugly. All he wants, of course, is to get Hux angry, because he thinks it’s hilarious. And Hux wouldn’t have him any other way. This defies all logic—but he wouldn’t. 

“It was a feeling. She was—Protective. She wanted to shield it. The singing.” He thinks a minute. “Do you know what the singing was? I couldn’t tell.”

Hux sighs and pulls his lighter out of his pocket. He knows Kylo doesn’t like it, but he absolutely needs a cigarette, and though he’s sure Kylo has a point when he shakes his head and tells him, _you have to protect your lungs,_ he just doesn’t care to listen. 

“Yes,” he says after he starts smoking. “And _this_ is why I say reconditioning doesn’t work. Even the great Phasma isn’t immune to such things. Now do you believe me?”

“No. She’s supposed to do this. The other one, the confused one. Phasma’s supposed to protect her. It’s fate, or something like that.”

“And will it change Phasma’s loyalty to us?”

“It’s beyond that.”

Hux is pretty much done by this point, and doesn’t even respond. 

He takes the coffee-pot, and takes a drink, which he almost immediately spits back out. Because the thing about sugar is, you can’t see it, and while Hux drinks absolutely none of it, never has, and never will, Ren has put what seems like a bucketful of it right into the pot. And Hux doesn’t even care by this point. He’s just going to go right along drinking it, because some caffeine is better than no caffeine. The only question is whether he should try to break what Phasma might have with this girl, or leave it to what Kylo calls Fate. Can you mess with Fate? 

But he’s never thought about it. He lives for power. And this little blip in that radar, which is his care for Kylo—well, he’s telling himself he’s just letting it run its course. 

 

************

 

Phasma is too busy to think about fate. She has too much to do, too many people at her command, too many things to think about and too many other things to _not_ think about. 

But she finds that at the end of her day, she can’t quite forget the voice. 


	2. Chapter 2

Ren slashes at the walls with his lightsaber, and Phasma feels, honestly, like she’s babysitting. No danger, no threat. Just like she’s trying to keep a child from throwing things.She’s yelling, though she can’t quite tell what she’s yelling about, and she can’t take much more. This—the three of them, forced to work together—will be the end of her. 

There seems no end to the number of things he can break.

She rushes around the bridge, trying to hold it all together, and it just isn’t working. 

She’s kind of glad Hux isn’t here to see it, he’s so stiff and silent, he would somehow make it worse. He’d clean up, sure, but he’d make it worse. 

She’s off her shift in an hour. The noise can keep going, the yelling can continue, she’ll be out of here in an hour. That’s all she has to think of. She doesn't even remember what made the man angry, maybe Mitaka said something he didn't like. She literally cannot fathom what would possess someone to destroy an entire set of walls. This is ridiculous. This is beyond ridiculous. It's outrageous, it's unnecessary, it's something she is so completely done with that she doesn't know how she'll keep handling it, day after day. 

She tells herself this most every week, though. 

One more hour. 

 

******

 

At the same time that Ren is wreaking thorough havoc on the bridge, Brielle is crossing the ship and finds a cat wandering the hallways, lost. She’s just seen a whole squad of troopers come through, and isn’t eager to let this little one get caught up when another group (or a cart, or a trash droid) comes by. It doesn’t occur to her for a second that this cat might belong to someone higher-ranking than herself—she assumes her higher-ups do not have the time or need for such things.

Maybe it’s Mitaka’s. He seems like he’d have a cat, if anyone would. Still, they visit each other often enough—for tea, and business, and to commiserate about the fact that they don’t really understand the other officers—that she thinks she’d have encountered the cat before.

It couldn’t have wandered onboard unnoticed, for they haven’t been planet-side in _ages,_ and she does mean ages, and she’s never seen this orange puff before. Still, it seems within a moment that they make sense to one another: the orange puff looks at her curiously and she looks at it curiously and they both agree, through squinting, to be friends. 

She picks the cat up, which it doesn’t seem to mind. 

“May I call you Buttercup?” 

_Meow._

“I suppose you’re more the color of a day-lily.” She holds the little creature up to look into its eyes. “Do you belong to someone? I’d never be able to tell—”

“ _What_ are you doing with my cat? _”_ The redhead general is striding toward her with a look of utter rage on his face, so much rage that he hasn’t even greeted her with his usual condescending murmur of _Lieutenant Green._

He seems unable to work out how to wear a coat. That’s the only thing she can focus on right now. He’s stalking toward her like she’s about to be his next kill, and all she can think is, _the arms go_ in _the sleeves, General,_ and she knows she should be working out how to defend herself, but the world feels hazy around her. _Sleeves,_ she thinks.

Brielle suddenly finds that she can make no noise at all. She opens her mouth and she tries, but nothing comes out _._

“You truly are the worst—” he trails off in his anger. She’s not sure what she’s the worst at, possibly everything, according to him, and she somehow has ceased minding. She puts a hand on the hilt of her rapier, though, just in case he goes for his gun. 

“I wasn’t going to let a lost cat get trampled.” She pulls the words out quietly, slowly, trying not to anger or startle him. 

_He looks surprised._ Brielle thinks she sees a flash of kindness in his eyes, but perhaps she is only imagining things. 

“That’s—that’s kind of you.”

“Thank you.” She smiles at the cat. “What’s its name?”

“Her name is Millicent.”

“She’s quite lovely, you know.” 

Brielle realizes she is holding the cat very close, because this man looks so like old Brendol did, and she couldn’t fathom giving any living thing to old Brendol without a fight. Not after the number of times that man tried to kill her. 

“Can I have her back?”

She gives the cat a little squeeze, but doesn’t let go. 

“You don’t trust me.”

_Why would I when you hate me?_ she wants to say. But she knows that isn’t why she’s wary. She also knows she can’t say the real reason out loud. She’s not even taken Mitaka into that sort of confidence. How could she tell Brendol’s own son how many times he had tried to kill her? 

To her surprise, he starts to laugh.

“Come, walk with me, Lieutenant. You may bring Millicent if you like.”

_Goddess and stars._ What has she gotten into?

“Do you fear me, Lieutenant?”

“As much as I ought to, sir.” She doesn’t know exactly where those words have come from, but they seem right. 

“Why were you singing yesterday?”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“I had my own office before they put me here. Things just—things make more sense when I sing.”

“And why are you afraid of me? _Truly._ ”

She takes a deep breath, and realizes she can’t think of anything else, so she says: “thethingissiryourfatherhetriedtokillmeand—”

“Slower, Lieutenant.”

“Your—your—”

“Are you going to say my father tried to kill you?” 

Others have said it before. But everyone else has said it like they are accusing him of these attempts. He has always resented it, resented that they think of him and his father in the same breath, resented that they fault him for something he hasn’t done. Brielle, on the other hand, says it by way of explanation: _I’m shielding your cat because you look like someone who tried to kill me._

The logic doesn’t quite follow, but then, Brielle’s never quite does: she gets her work done, her conclusions are sound, but she doesn’t arrive at things by straight roads. 

“Yes, General. Sir.”

A number of Brielle’s oddities click into place.

“How many times?”

“Enough that I can’t sleep without my sword within reach, sir.”

A number of Brielle’s other oddities click into place. 

“I see.”

She thinks, then, that she sees kindness in his eyes.

 

***********

 

Phasma comes upon them when they are still together, sitting in the kitchen off the bridge, having coffee. She has put Millie down to roam, and they’re talking companionably enough. It had escaped both of them, until now, that they share an obsession with coffee, the stronger the better. And now they’re sharing it, and Phasma wonders what’s happened. Is it possible—

“Captain!” The general calls her over. “Care for some coffee?”

She gestures to her helmet. “Exactly how am I supposed to drink it?” Somehow, in her tiredness, she's forgotten that her armor does come off. It's a shock to her at times, that she isn't just the Captain and commander of the troops, that she is actually a person. The chrome takes over, she's lost to it sometimes. She wonders what this means, existentially, but cannot yet tell. 

“You could—” Brielle starts, but then realizes she’d be overstepping and stops herself.

“You could take your helmet off,” Hux suggests. 

She can’t argue, because Brielle has already poured her some. And while Phasma isn’t one to stand on ceremony or politeness, she’s also had to deal with Ren all morning. And that is something she hates, and she doesn’t want to refuse coffee on top of it.

So she takes off her helmet, with a click and a hiss and a pop, and takes the mug, though she does not sit. 

And she’s beautiful. 

She’s beautiful. She's smiling a little, probably just to breathe the free air, and something in her face is kind. Rumored ruthless, Brielle reflects. Nothing of the kind. She can't be, not when she looks so gentle. 

“How’s—the—um—things?” Brielle asks. _Damn it._ She was going to say something elegant, eloquent, going to charm her, smile and say _you are lovely, my Captain,_ but what actually comes out is _how’s the um things,_ and she’s certainly felt stupider in her life, but not by much.

Phasma can tell Hux is holding in a laugh, and she tries to respond with a straight face, because she knows Brielle is trying, and she's probably just nervous because of Hux's overbearing presence, which must be looming over her by now. Although it doesn't quite escape her that Brielle became so shaken when she took her helmet off. But that can't be. Can it?  

“The things aren’t bad, Lieutenant.”

“You can call me Brielle, if you like.” Well that isn't typical. First names are usually earned around here, after a long time and a lot of work. But this--she seems quite content to give this to Lili. 

“Brielle. Oh, and Ren broke a couple of walls, but that’s out of my hands now.”

Hux sighs. “What’s he going to do later? We’re going planet-side for that gala, and he’s too volatile for such things. _Still._ I swear if I didn’t love him—”

The words do not shock either of the women he’s talking with, and he frankly wishes they would. It would be comforting to think there was someone who didn’t know of his affections. Alas, neither bats an eye. At least not at the correct part of what he’s said. 

“Wait, we’re what?” As a lieutenant, Brielle knows she’s supposed to attend such things, but hasn’t heard about this one. Maybe, blessedly, it doesn’t work that way on this ship. It certainly did on the last one, and caused her untold trouble, but perhaps this is different. 

“Going planet-side. For a ball? You didn’t get the message?” 

“I don’t think so.” _Though I’m not attached to my tablet like you are, so maybe—_ but she doesn’t say that. 

“Yes, and be ready to defend yourself. Not everyone there will be kind.”

Brielle nods earnestly at what Lili has just told her, but she’s always ready for that. It doesn’t exactly drop, not for her. 

“How _do_ you defend yourself?” Lili asks, genuinely curious. “I can’t imagine that sword at your side—”

“But it does! It was my grandmother’s and she said nothing could withstand it, though neither of us have fought against a lightsaber yet, and I can’t bear to use a gun — ”

“A blaster is the most efficient weapon you could use. I keep trying to tell Ren the theatrics of that lightsaber — ”

“Too easy.”

“That’s the point.”

Brielle lets this go. It would sound outrageous to say it, but she never takes a life she doesn’t absolutely have to take. She keeps the radius from which she can do harm only as wide as her rapier. 

“But your way is rather elegant, I think.” Lili says. Then she draws her staff.

"Let's see what you're made of."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a lovely day, you who have stumbled upon this fic! I know it's weird and ridiculous, and far too fluffy for such a space empire as this is in canon, but Brielle walked into my head and kept asking me to write about her. 
> 
> Also, comments bring writers joy. But shh, that's a secret!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for a fight and a ball!

“Again.”

“Captain, this is the fifth time I’ve been on the ground in —”

“ _Again._ ”

When Lili had said, _let’s see what you’re made of,_ she’d meant it. They had fought a long time, Lili with a staff and Brielle with a sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. And when Lili had soundly beaten the smaller woman, she’d said _again._ And _again._ And _again._ Brielle protested that this was not fair: she knew the basics, but she wasn’t a warrior, and she was nearly a foot shorter than the Captain, and not nearly as strong, not nearly as sure of herself, and Lili listened to none of it. Brielle could fend off another officer just fine, for that was all she’d ever had to do. But Lili was not content with leaving her to that, no matter how thoroughly Brielle protested. If she was going to be protective of the girl—and she was going to have to be protective of the girl, because putting someone so shy on a ship like the _Finalizer_ was _completely unsustainable_ —she would have to do it by teaching her. 

After all, they wouldn’t always be near each other, and it wouldn’t do to defend Brielle as though Lili was a knight, and Brielle was her lady. Lili is certainly entertaining this romantic thought, privately, and has been since she first saw the girl—but she can’t actually follow through with it. 

No one has come into the kitchen for about the past hour. They’ve taken one look at the two women fighting in there and decided to get their coffee from somewhere else. After all, it's rather wiser to do that than to interrupt. Most have assumed that Lili's actually gone after Brielle over some offense, and they're even more inclined to stay out of the way if that is the case. Lili in a practice round is intimidating. Lili in a real fight is absolutely terrifying

“You’re wary,” Lili says as Brielle leaves off her protests and gets back up. “And you use your size to your advantage. Both are good.” They circle one another for a second.

“But?” Brielle almost rolls her eyes at the inevitable _but._

“You’re skittish. You can’t win if you don’t learn to be bolder.”

“Well, Captain, I’d never have known _that._ ”

“Really?” She takes the first strike.

“No! Been called it since — twelve.” At least she thinks that was the first time the word was used to describe her. She remembers one of her teachers at the Academy calling her out during some drill, looking at her with undisguised contempt and sneering _skittish little thing._ Of course it was that precise jumpiness that saved her the first time old Brendol fired in her direction. 

_Better you’d been hit than reacted like that._ She can still hear those words in her head. As though dodging was a sin, and dying nothing at all. She would like to say it hadn’t haunted her, but it most assuredly had, at least right after it happened. And at times like this, it still does. _Better you’d been hit._ Most of her superiors refused to suffer her flight-response, and tried to burn it out of her by threats or plain ridicule, but it had never really left her. 

“How have you survived?” Lili asks. 

“Funny.”

“No, I’m being serious. How have you survived?” At this point they’re facing each other again, weapons raised. And she can see in Lili’s eyes that she doesn’t mean what Brendol meant, doesn’t mean what the Admirals have meant, that Lili she is not asking why Brielle isn’t dead yet because she thinks Brielle should be, but because she genuinely doesn’t know. She is not saying it out of contempt. It’s just a fact: cadets aren’t supposed to live long if they’re deemed weak, and Brielle was deemed weak from the moment they took her. 

“Grace.”

“Grace.” Lili looked skeptical.

“Can’t explain otherwise. Must be I wasn’t meant—” she stops to duck and regains her footing very shakily. She just does not have the same endurance as the Captain. And she wouldn’t expect herself to, even if Lili does. 

“Brielle. You must learn to fight. Right now all you’re doing is defending yourself. _Fight._ Whatever you have, use it.” 

She’s trapped between Lili and the table. And there is no escape, and Lili is quite beautiful, and her staff is raised against Brielle’s sword, and _whatever you have—_ Brielle sees only one way out, and that way is stunning the taller woman. In any rational situation, she’d argue with herself for weeks before pulling anything like this, but she will not lose a sixth time, no matter how much taller and stronger Lili might be.

“You cannot rely on fate forever.”

“Not fate. _Grace._ Fate’s random, but this—something intends me to live.” She’s pushing back right now with her sword and one hand, which is working well enough, though it’s a little painful. But she pulls both away abruptly, and Lili stumbles toward her.

She falls in just close enough to kiss. Which is exactly what Brielle does, deliberate but quick, and then, taking advantage of the confusion, she ducks out from where she was trapped before. 

She intends to continue their battle. And yet as the magnitude of what she’s done dawns on her, Brielle bolts, gracelessly, her boots ringing _clack-clack-clack_ on the floor and her long coat flying behind her. 

Lili just stands there. 

And stands there.

Not only did this somehow happen, but she didn't mind it. She's known the girl for three days, and she didn't mind it. And she wonders if she was wrong about the girl breaking. Maybe she won't. Maybe, like spring nights, those she meets will end up warmer. 

Maybe.

Liliana stands there until the General comes back into the kitchen.

“You seem shaken up. Is everything all right?” He’s putting on his usual formal airs, as though he's asking as a matter of course. But surely he’s seen Brielle running away, and can probably guess why. “Did you get into a fight with the girl?”

“I was trying to teach her.”

“Then why was she running?” He asks this well knowing that Lili’s lessons can terrify the students who are subject to them. 

Lili laughs. “That was her problem, not mine.”

The general looks alarmed. “Does she need some sort of further training? We cannot have a lieutenant who would run from a fight.”

“It, ah—it wasn’t exactly the fight she was running from. It was more how she chose to end it.”

“I see. Well, you’d best go and get ready for this evening.”

_This evening._ Of course the ball would be this evening. And, of course, Lili would rather do anything but this. But for appearances, she will keep a straight face, and dress up as though it’s any other day, as though she knows precisely what to make of what’s just happened. 

 

**********

 

Brielle is definitely not hiding in her apartment, and she is definitely dealing with it.

And by this, she means _definitely hiding in her apartment, and_ _not dealing with it at all._ She’s called her next shift out sick, and is pacing around the dress-form in the center of the room, touching up something she’d thought was finished long ago. It would, of course, be perfect for the upcoming party that the general was talking about, though she wishes she could get out of it. Because among her other faults, Brielle makes dresses. Whenever they go worldside, if she can, she finds somewhere to pick up a few yards of something she likes, and she makes dresses. 

First they were were so messy they were useless, and then they were inelegant and awkward, but at least held the right shape. The next few weren’t quite as unsightly, and at some point she found herself with enough skill to make something she’d actually want to wear. 

She knows how ridiculous it is, knows that her habits of singing and learning to make dresses are bizarre, flowery, ridiculous. She knows it is not befitting someone trained in the military. She knows and she just keeps at it, being someone who is not fit for what she does, ignoring how unfit she is, continuing and continuing as she is, without any warning or change.

A knock.

And then, someone with an over-proper accent calling, _Lieutenant,_ with barely veiled anger.

Damn it. 

She opens the door, because there’s nothing she could do that would make him go away, and pretending to simply not exist is a bad idea. She has no idea what he wants, but it can’t be good. Maybe he’s angry because she broke something in the kitchen. _Did she break something in the kitchen?_ She’s honestly not sure, it’s overwhelming her that she kissed Lili, after knowing her for a bare few days and with absolutely no warning. It was uncalled for on too many levels, and she’s currently too embarrassed to say a word. To anyone.

“You are ready to go, aren’t you?” 

She’s answered the door in shorts and a shirt that’s been severely chopped up, seeing as it no longer has any neck or sleeves, and he quickly ascertains that she is not ready to go at all. She has, of course, completely forgotten the ball. It’s tonight. It’s practically _now._ And she hasn’t even got makeup on. 

“Still running from Liliana?”

“Who’s Liliana?”

“Captain Phasma. She doesn’t mind your knowing her first name. And perhaps it will be easier for you to face her with it?”

Brielle looks genuinely confused. She’s bolted from a fight, during which she kissed someone far and away above her rank, and all she can do is assume she’d be reprimanded, informally if not formally, for the whole matter. She’s been far out of line all day. 

“Why are you being kind?”

“I’m not being kind. I’m here to tell you that you had better get ready immediately. Are you wearing that?” he indicates the dressform.

“Is it a problem?” 

Of course, of _course_ he would be the one to finally say something about her dresses. Of course he would, after the day she’s had, tell her to go find something better. 

She’s just about had it.

“Problem? No.”

She closes the door then, and changes. It feels wrong, everything feels wrong, but she knows she has to manage. She inhales. Takes the dress off the dressform. Puts it on. The skirt puffs out in a way she doesn’t quite like anymore, and the ribbon-roses she’s put along the skirt no longer look right. A couple tufts of her hair stick out in odd places, because the growing-back is not a neat process. She feels like a half-missing melody. 

“Listen, take your makeup with you, we haven’t got time for you to put it on now!” She can hear him yelling through the door, and she runs for her makeup bag. This is the sort of thing she really hates—being rushed to go somewhere she doesn’t want to go in the first place.

She opens the door again, with her shoes in one hand and her bag in the other, and he nods. 

“You do look decent.”

She assumes this is the kindest he’s willing to be about this. And in fact, it means more that he should tell her she’s _decent_ than if, say, Mitaka called her _lovely._ It isn’t comforting, though, when she’s going to have to face Lili so soon. 

 

*********

 

Lili doesn’t know what to make of the events of the afternoon. She doesn’t really want to, not yet. She stands in the hangar, ready and waiting for the other four (Ren, Hux, Mitaka, Green—she won’t call her _Brielle,_ not right now. She doesn’t want to feel any more confusion than she already does). 

But when Green and Hux round the corner, she can feel her eyes go a little wider. Brielle still looks rather like herself, vaguely pretty but hardly stunning, but the _dress_ she’s wearing—two days ago, Lili would’ve called it absurd, maybe even said as much—but she can’t ridicule it now. Not with the bizarre feelings roiling through her. 

It’s not exactly typical for an officer. It’s light lavender and embroidered with roses, and she can’t help but wonder where it could possibly have come from. Lili—and the others, of course—are wearing dress uniforms. Meanwhile, Brielle has her sword at her hip, and other than that, she looks like an elegant lady who knows nothing of battle.

“Let’s get going,” says Hux, absolutely all business, as always. Kylo keeps trying to put an arm around him. So far it’s not working. 

And so they set out, in a small ship where they are all in one cabin together, which turns quickly into fighting over the radio. In other words, Hux wants classical, and Ren wants something called punk pop, and Brielle and Doph are trying to turn the dial to something they call _blue grass._ Huh protests that grass is green, and Doph says that’s not the point.

Lili drives, while Brielle puts on makeup, pausing occasionally to take a sip of the slushie-cup which Mitaka periodically offers her. Doph is very serious about what he refers to as “pre-gaming,” and Brielle seems very down for it. 

It’s unwise, Lili thinks, but at least those two get off the ship laughing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was rather wondering whether the dresses were too Mary-Sue, but it felt like Brielle would do something like that. Dressmaking is meditative for her. Sometimes her dresses are gorgeous, but definitely the first ones were trashcans. Anyhow, what would y'all readers think if this led into a larger sequel where Bri, Lili, Ren, and Mitaka go and make Hux emperor? I'm a fan of the laurel wreath aesthetic. And the ruling the galaxy as a friend fam aesthetic.


	4. Gardens

They walk through what feels, to Brielle, like miles of gardens before reaching a door. She has misjudged her shoes—she always misjudges her shoes—and she’s paying for it now. If she were at a party in an apartment, she could take them off once she arrived, but not here. She’ll be wearing these all night. Damnable things. 

She slows so she is matching pace perfectly with Lili. It’s probably time to steel herself for the fallout—she’s going to have to do it sometime. Not that she’d like to, but it seems to be her fate. At least she knows there won’t be anything official: the General seems to have no issue with her actions, or even anymore with her existence. He tolerates her, which is far more than his father ever did. 

But now to the matter at hand. 

“Will you forgive me?” She takes a single glance over at the taller woman. “For earlier, I mean—for how I ended our fight?”

“What’s there to forgive?” She says this as though she is somehow entertained by the whole thing. Well, at least Brielle is comic relief instead of blaster-bait. Those are the only two ways someone like Lili would see her. She still feels she needs to explain.

“I was far out of line—I—”

“You _weren’t_. Honestly, I thought it was clever.”

“You did?”

“As long as you don’t end every fight that way—yes, I really did.” She’s smiling. And looking at her, in a way Brielle knows quite well, and in a way that she did not expect. She expected vague amusement, or more likely, anger — but the feared Captain is taking the third option. Somehow. Bizarrely. This is that hopeful face of someone who isn’t sure yet whether she should move toward Brielle or away from her. 

Brielle has not felt anything like this in a long time. It’s a bubbling sort of anticipation, the kind that she only gets when she _knows_ what’s coming, whether it be hours or weeks or a couple of days, she knows she’s got Lili.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, indicating the garden, changing the subject. Even though they seem all right with one another, even though she feels that bubbling inside her, she’s still rather embarrassed. 

But it is lovely. Even if they have to walk miles more, it will be beautiful to her. They’ve landed on a world with fine stars, fine gravity, a breathable atmosphere, and flowers, ground under their feet and a sky over their heads and a single glowing moon—the kindness of the Goddess, she thinks, has got to be endless, that someone as wayward as herself should have a sky above her and ground under her. 

Hux yells at Doph to get rid of the slushie-cup, and instead of complying, they all laugh—even Hux, at some point, starts laughing. It’s as though his rigidity can’t affect them here on the ground. Can’t even affect him. He’s human on the ground. Brielle isn’t sure what to make of this, because she’s used to operating on the idea that her superior officers are more like machines, precise and perfect, without a heart to hear her or give her mercy. 

Maybe it’s the presence of the flowers. Maybe it’s changing them. Brielle wants to dance, but she knows she can’t, knows she shouldn’t, knows she should make herself look stately as long as she can. That even when she will be dancing, it will be stately, and proper, and not at all the way she wants to spin, hopelessly. 

Finally they come to double-doors of glass, which light is streaming out of, and go in. Everything is shining. 

Maybe she should plant flowers on the _Finalizer._ Is that even possible? 

 

***********

 

When Brendol sees them with his son, he is ready to shoot something. The Knight, the Captain—neither a connection that will help the boy rise in standing. A lieutenant, who must be far below him (he sees the markings on the coat, he knows the rank is low), and someone’s wife in a jarringly purple-and-white dress. This, he thinks errantly, does not match the color scheme of his Order (because he does think of it as his, and he won’t consider anything else). 

She provokes a rage in him that he can’t quite place. Maybe it’s her shaggy hair, her unkempt expression, the way she’s using her arms both to aid her speech and balance her walking. He’s expelled cadets for less.

She seems to stand in wonder of the light itself. And this, he realizes, is what he really wants to crush in the girl. She wants the light. She loves it, the lamps and the song and the people milling about without anything direct to do. This is what she loves, and he hates her for it. 

The Captain standing next to her is straight-backed and proper-looking, and he admires how ruthless as she can look even without her armor. And yet. 

She’s sneaking glances at the little woman on the other side of her, and the little one is clearly playing at being shy. An affair? Perhaps. Such things _are_ common, though he isn’t fond of that fact. 

His son is as thin and pale as ever, and Brendol does not like the way he’s talking to the Knight, leaning into him as though he _trusts_. There’s a light in that face that must be put out if he wants to maintain his power, what little he has of it. 

He’d damn well better not be with the man. Brendol knows how alternately volatile and childish the Knight is, _if he can even call himself a Knight_. He’s heard the rumors. 

His child should do far better, _far_ better, if he wants to make an Admiralty, and if he knows what’s good for him, he will. It matters. Who’s on your arm matters. The Knight shakes his head and then ruffles his son’s hair out of its pomade, all with the audacity to grin at him like he loves—and trust and love aren’t about to help raise the child’s career.

But maybe if his son is associating with such nonsense, he _isn’t_ above this rifraff. 

They look _content_. All of them do. They’re too complacent to be anything else. The smallest one (and Brendol cannot imagine who deigned to marry her or why), is teetering a little, and whether it’s the shoes she wears or that she’s been drinking, it bespeaks a highly improper nature. And as she turns—wait—is that a damn _rapier?_ He’s only ever known one person to carry such a thing. Brianne. Bella. Gabriella. What the hell ever her name was, he’d tried to shoot her more times than he could count, tried to trip her up, get her into accidents and what have you. If that’s her, it explains the rage he’s feeling. 

That girl simply was not cut out to be a soldier. 

He discovered through many unsuccessful attempts at ending her, however, that she also did not seem quite cut out to die. This was rather surprising for Brendol, because he imagined that you could only be one or another, a soldier or dead. 

That Brielle is neither disrupts his entire view of the world. 

 

************

 

Brielle should be shocked, she knows she should, she had thought him dead, or at least far gone from her life. She hasn’t seen or heard of him in so long—and she has begun to think of him as merely a bad memory.But here he is. Commandant Brendol, glowering at her like he’s done for as long as she can remember, right from the time she was very, very little, and tried to climb the artificial trees at the Academy. 

_That is, she was able to tell something was wrong with them, and wanted to fix it—ten-year-old Brielle could not fix anything, of course, but she had thought that if she sat with them and talked to them long enough, maybe they’d wake up. Maybe the synthetic leaves would turn to something really green, photosynthesizing, breathing. She could not understand the concept of an artificial tree. And for that, Brendol took off at her in a screaming fit._

She’s been afraid of him for as long as she can remember, too, or at least afraid of the thought of him. She always acted on instinct when he was actually around, her self-preservation skills getting the better of her, because Brendol is like a demon of death. 

(He is not the angel of death, the angel is different. She comes when she must, and carries you away peacefully. No, Brendol’s a devil. He rages in and takes and takes before his time.)

So when she actually sees him, glaring at her with a deep severi ty that his son can’t seem to match, she goes numb. Meeting Armitage scared her. Even hearing him criticize her hair raised terror in her, for he looked so very like his father. But on seeing the man himself Brielle remembers how much harsher he truly is—and she cannot rouse any sort of reaction in herself. 

She makes a quiet humming noise, and then says, “ _oh. Oh, dear.”_ Calmly, like she’s accidentally put sugar in her coffee or gotten one yard of fabric from a store instead of two. And that’s rather what this is like, because she can’t feel anything at all. 

“What is it?” Lili asks. She’s looking at Brielle intently. 

She must have blanked, she thinks vaguely, dropped the expression all out of her face too suddenly. She’s got to stop doing that. 

“Nothing. I’m going to get a drink.”

Dopheld protests that she’s already had enough from the slushie-cup, which he has cleverly (or not so cleverly) hidden in the pocket of his greatcoat and hung in a closet somewhere. Trashcans are hard to come by in quasi-enchanted palaces like the one they are in right now. 

“Doph,” she warns.

He looks over at the Commandant, and it hits him _why_ she needs to still her nerves like this, and he nods. He knew Brielle at the academy, and he knows no one has quite the same effect on her as Brendol does. 

“But only if it’s wine, and only if you get me one, too.”

Her dreams of coffee-and-whiskey shattered, she still agrees, and walks over to the bar, assuming that Brendol will ignore her even if he’s close. 

He doesn’t. 

“I see you’ve encountered the General.” He says this walking over to her. She doesn’t much like that he’s approaching at all. It’s also a little odd that he isn’t referring to his own child by name, she thinks, and then realizes she has to focus on defending herself, just on defending herself, and that’s all. 

“Good evening to you, Commandant,” she says, with more ice in her voice than she intended.

“I hope you are not _with my son._ ”

In older days, she would have looked down and shaken her head, but somehow she is past that. She will not fight with him, but she will not just look at her skirt and hope he gets nicer. He won’t. 

“Haven’t we settled this?”

Maybe she’s just tired. Maybe she’s engulfed suddenly in light, too suddenly to regain her usually timid ways. Maybe just as the ground disarms the General, it protects Brielle. 

Either way, she’s done. Brendol went off on her about this years ago when he caught her with her first real love, Adrienne. Whether it was about Adrienne being a girl, or that he discouraged love in his cadets, she didn’t really know. Either way, they hadn’t “settled” anything. But he knows who she is. 

“Then who is he with?”

“I wouldn’t know, Commandant.” She gestures for wine, and then gives the bartender—and Brendol—a wide grin, nods, and walks away. She can feel him glowering, and she doesn’t really know why, and she doesn’t really care. 

She wonders if she’s gone mad, finally, snapped right through her center instead of simply fraying around her edges, as she’s been doing for so long. She may also just be getting drunk, which is far more plausible, but also far less romantic to talk about. 

“May I have the honor, Brielle?” Lili is almost bowing, hand held out, smiling at her with eyes shining like there is a great story being played out here, despite the fact that they are surrounded by the remains of the old empire, despite the fact that they’ve been conditioned against this, they are both swept into a waltz that seems to be _theirs._

It is theirs. 

She didn’t think that Lili would believe in great stories, but then, she also didn’t think that she would be able to lead a dance so well, didn’t think that she would teach her how to fight better, didn’t imagine any of this. 

And everyone here is full of darkness. And she is still surrounded by light. 

 

***********

 

When a broken-faced man in dark robes wanders into the shadows later, no one sees him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Nonetheless yall. Thank you for the read, and please leave comments! Because comments make writers happy. Also, Snoke and Brendol will show their scary faces in the next chapter!


	5. Ball round 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jammin but not for long

She’s dancing across the glowing white floor, under massive chandeliers that she keeps staring at, mystified. Maybe it’s Dopheld’s slushie, and maybe it’s her inexperience with being worldside, but either way, she’s overjoyed. 

Her lavender skirts are spinning around her and she’s the only person on the floor who’s alone, but she looks so content in her solitary waltz that no one has tried to cut in yet. Amid couples who seem hesitant, nervous, tense, trying to impress fellow officers rather than understand one another, Brielle is joyful. Childlike, despite the fact that she’s also armed and drunk. Her steps are very simple, she doesn’t know how to dance well at all, but she seems light, balanced— _right._ And at some point, she starts spinning slower, and she catches Liliana’s eye and grins. It’s not the same look she gave to Brendol and the bartender, not even the same look she gave to Doph. This is more like a request, _come dance with me._

Lili complies instantly, sweeping her up and leading, for though Brielle can easily direct herself, she cannot direct both of them. Everything is still so bright, she can’t think straight, and then there is the warm, warm presence of someone holding her, and it’s nearly more than she knows how to handle. 

It’s like breathing, it pours into and out of her lungs, and she’s terribly aware of everything at the same time as it fades in and out of focus around her. It’s like the lenses are out of her eyes. But she isn’t afraid. She marvels at this almost more than the rest of it. She isn’t afraid.

It’s not been like this with anyone else. But then—it’s different with Lili. Everything is different with Lili. 

When she pulls Brielle out the wide double-doors and into some obscure part of the garden and kisses her (properly this time, no swords between them), they both know something has fallen into place. They both hesitate for a long time before, as if to ask a question _—_ of course it has already become inevitable, they are standing too close for it to be anything but inevitable. But they will not acknowledge that. Not yet. Not until—and then there they are. 

_It shouldn’t be like this,_ of course she thinks it, because the other woman, the woman who is holding on to her like a damn lifeline as she’s thinking this, is—she’s _Phasma._ And Brielle knows she is dangerous. And yet it’s Brielle keeping their balance now, and Lili who seems struck off her feet by this. She is dangerous. _But she will not be a danger to me._

How human Lili seemed then, to have that half-overjoyed and half-stricken look on her face as she pulled Brielle aside and looked at her and leaned down, at first only so their foreheads were just touching, and then kissed her, and Brielle wondered errantly whether she would stop. Ever. It didn’t much matter. 

_How terribly romantic._

The voice in her head is not her own. She almost wouldn’t have noticed, because that is exactly the sort of thing she’d say to herself, laughing at the whole matter, giddy with knowing that she isn’t alone here, truly isn’t— _how terribly romantic—_ and yet. Whoever’s saying this has got the tone all wrong, the pitch too high. This voice is mocking, and it comes from a shallower place than she’s used to. It’s as though a rock was dropped into the starlit-dark river of her thoughts, and this _being_ in her head is only catching the spray that’s brought up, instead of actually drawing water. 

She pulls back more forcefully than she intends to. 

“Brielle? I didn’t mean to—did you not want—”

“There’s. There’s something.” her voice cracks, and she can’t quite say it. 

“I’d have backed off—” Lili, looking rather horrified for someone who’s been on battlefields half her life, starts to back away, and now it’s Brielle holding onto her instead of the other way around.

“Something’s in my head Lili the voice it’s not my voice in there it—” She’s shaking like she’s trying to get it out, or get herself away. 

It begins laughing.

That’s when she really gets scared. It knows. It’s in her mind while she’s thinking about— no, this is not all right. Lili reaches for her, but instinct has taken over by now, and Brielle’s instinct is always to get as far away as possible. Her arms come up to her shoulders, she's trying to hold herself together and shield herself at the same time. Lili knows better than to touch her.

“No. Your sword.” 

“I—”

“Brielle! Fight.” She’s more forceful than she was in the kitchen, earlier that day, she’s absolutely assured. She will not let Brielle get hurt, but she also can’t truly defend her. No one can defend Brielle, except for Brielle herself. 

No one has done this for her before. Encouraged her. Let her handle herself. The quiet anger in her from earlier, from when she saw Brendol, is gone, and yet she’s still on fire, still somehow burning, because someone is trying to help her. 

Someone is telling her to stand against what’s after her instead of telling her to just stand as straight as she can while she takes it, and she’s undeniably grateful, and it finally burns so high that it sets something off in her like an explosion.

Anyone else who’s seen her this way will just leave her to her devices when she gets like this, and here’s Liliana Phasma, trying to pull her back. _She will not be dangerous to me,_ Brielle thinks again, and she stops panicking. It’s like the rational part of her has begun to swim up toward light, and as it breaks through, she does not reach for her sword, but she stops trying to hide. She opens her arms and she says, _no you cannot. You cannot._

The thing in her head doesn’t move, doesn’t leave, but she’s starting to trust herself. _What do you want?_ She asks. And she does not get an answer. She only feels it trying to fall deeper into her mind, trying to wrench it from her grasp. It’s blindly grasping for control. It doesn’t care about anything else.

“No more,” she says this aloud. “No, no more.”

And then it comes at her. She doesn’t even have time to react. She can’t even quite see it. It’s phantom and as tall as she is, though it’s on all fours and she’s standing upright. It’s got teeth. It’s coming at her with its teeth, and it's somehow more solid than before. It’s _materializing_. 

 

***

 

On the other side of the hall, Ren sinks into a chair. Hux runs for him immediately, and crouches so he’s at eye-level. He is used to being as gentle as possible with Kylo, assumes that the man needs as much reassurance as he can get as long as he’s Snoke’s apprentice, but right now Hux is shaking him hard, trying to snap him out of it.

Things like this have happened before, and it’s never been good. 

“What’s going on?” Rem opens his eyes groggily, like he’s been asleep instead of passed out at a formal event. 

“You collapsed. Are you with me? Kylo, Kylo, are you with me?”

“Yes, I’m here.” He says it weakly, though.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” 

“He’s made something massive. Drained me for it but he’s done. Got the energy he needs.”

Hux stands up, looking wildly for the offending creature. He remembers Kylo telling him about this, that with great power they can create illusions in more minds than one, that with great effort they can even make them solid. Snoke doesn’t have enough power for such tasks, even with his great influence, even with his overwhelming madness and strength. So he drains Kylo’s energy.

“Not here.” Kylo mumbles. 

“What?”

“Garden. Attacking Brielle.”


	6. Ball part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, I mess their lives up right at the end

It bowls her over, it’s some sort of animal, but shadowy, not quite there, not quite corporeal. Not really. She knows nothing after that, she hasn’t had time to reach for sword or knife, she can’t even tell what it is, except that perhaps it is some kind of wolf, green-eyed and massive, a thing with a human expression, ruthless. 

Lili pulls a blaster. See, the inconvenient thing about force-illusions turned solid is that once they exist in the real world, they can be defeated by solid weapons. It’s over before Hux bolts out to the garden, before his and Lili’s shouting voices reach each other and he finds her. It’s over long before all that. She shoots it, three times for good measure, and it dissolves instead of falling. 

Unfortunately, Brielle’s injuries do not dissolve. She's still on the ground. She's not getting up, not even struggling to. Her dress is slashed to pieces, the skirt in tatters, the crown of flowers about her head half-torn away and her hair in tangles. It's outrageous how much damage such a short fight could've done to her, a struggle in which she didn't even have time to draw her rapier. Lili picks her up, cradles her like a bride crossing into her new home. They make a ridiculous picture, she thinks, the Captain without a scratch on her and the young officer a mess.

She runs toward the house and meets Hux halfway, along with a gathering crowd of people, _none of whom should be anywhere near this mess_. They make a scene of disaster.

Disaster that's only fallen upon two people, one vulnerable in mind and the other in body, both attached to the chief officers of the Finalizer.

Something isn't right, something isn't right at all, and as they meet each other's eyes it registers between them. They both know, but they can't think about that yet. 

Hux doesn't have a clue what he's doing with such injuries, he's calling for someone else to do something, and Lili has in desperation wrapped her white jacket around Brielle's small frame. It's half-red now, and she doesn't want to think about that. 

There’s more shouting, they try to get her to a medic in time, treat the damage its poisoned claws did to her, especially her arms and shoulders. 

See, it grabbed her like Snoke would’ve. In the shape of a great wolf, it still grabbed her like a humanoid, wrestling with her hand-to-hand. 

She hears none of the shouting, neither does she hear the whispered revelations among Hux and Ren and Doph and Lili that the Leader attacked her. She hears none of the suspicion, and none of the plotting. 

Brielle has fever-dreams of flowers and labyrinths. In one of them, she rescues Lili from a similar attack. In another, they are not so fortunate. 

 

***

 

“Why her?” 

Hux is the one to ask the question, much later, while on a call with the leader. Although he has to admit, he's lost half his respect for the creature he's speaking with after this. Even he can see that Brielle did nothing wrong, isn't capable of doing enough damage to warrant something like that. Something bizarre is going on for that kind of random and unexpected wrath to be unleashed, even from Snoke. 

It's a good thing this is only a voice call, first of all because it's harder to read a mind over such a weak connection, and secondly because he’s holding Ren, who is asleep. He's still trying to recover still from the attack, two days later. It took more out of him than it did Brielle, and _she_ was poisoned in the process. 

And yet. She's called herself lucky, in the bare moments of wakefulness she’s had since. Lucky to have Lili to shoot the thing, lucky to have people around her to help after, and to have medication for recovery. _Luckiest_ , she said dreamily, to have Lili's hand to hold when they've seen one another. That was right before she dropped off again.

How broken a response. How unaffected she seems. 

Hux wonders if the attack on the girl was not more of a test for Ren than for her. 

Whatever it was, Ren still hasn’t completely recovered his energy or his mind. And Hux isn’t ready to let go. He will not be ready to let go for a long, long time yet. 

People say later that he saved her from a beast, a wild thing native to the planet. No one wants to admit that it was deliberate. No one could imagine the immense power it took to create the thing. They can’t fathom it, so they say something mad or rabid wandered into the garden and went for her (and they don’t know it, but they are not really wrong).

“She would have opposed the project. I had to keep her in line.” _No._ It makes sense now. _You’re keeping_ us _in line. Me through Ren. Lili through Brielle._

“What project?”

“All in good time, General.”

“Why does her opposing it matter? She’s of no rank or consequence.”

He can feel the thing on the other end sneering. “Surely you aren’t so naive. You weak mortals. You like to protect the innocent among you. Makes you feel more powerful even than destruction. And she is innocent.” _As is he in his way. And I want to protect him._

Hux runs a hand absently through Ren’s hair. He is unconscious, but he smiles. 

“So you scare her.” He sounds like he’s agreeing. He remembers, once, when he would have actually wanted this to happen. No longer. Now he says it like it means defeat, and truly, it does. 

“Precisely, General. I have to keep such as that one in line.”

“A brutal tactic.” And he doesn’t really say it because of Brielle, but because it’s clarifying how they are all on the line. They have to agree with this, or they’ll be destroyed. They are all bound together now. 

And Lili, his oldest ally, the only one who knows how wretched his father was to him, the only one who knows about his relationship with Ren, the one who always knows and never tells— _Lili_ is on the line. 

“What’s the weapon?” He asks. 

 

***

 

Brielle wakes, groggy, wondering where she’s fallen asleep this time. Maybe she’s still worldside, where the ball was held. It smells strange. Perhaps she fell asleep in that starlit garden—no. No, that beeping sounds like a heart monitor, and it sounds pretty close. 

She’s been injured.

A hand comes to her shoulder, steadying her as she tries to bolt up, and it seems the presence next to her anticipates her running away. Very well. She can save her escape for later.

“Awake?”

“I can’t be sure,” she feels herself grinning. Ah, but this is all so irrational. Have they got her on pain medication? They must.

"You're back," she continues. "My knight." The other woman's face is high above her and very fuzzy without her lenses or her senses, but she still can tell who it is. She's loopy enough to say such things, and Lili allows it for the same reason. "How's training today?"

Everything spins, and she finds she cannot sit upright at all. Definitely pain medication.

"It's all right," she hears through her fog. And she thinks this is more cosmic than just training. It's as though Lili is reassuring her that everything's all right. 

She feels, vaguely, a brush over her forehead, and then she is again insensible. 

 

***

 

“It will lay waste to worlds.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It ends like this cause there's gonna be a second fic. They take out the Supreme Leader.


End file.
